Primary Colours
by holadios
Summary: Cameron is stabbed in her apartment...and Wilson must deal with the consequences. A story about the primary colours we see in our lives, told in three parts. Not a romance fic.
1. Red Blood

**Disclaimer:** I do not own anything you recognize from House, M.D.

**A/N:** So...I'm back. No, this is not **Ten Days in October**. Yes, I am writing **Ten Days in October** - I have completed four chapters so far. This was an opportunity that I simply could not pass up. This is going to be a little mini story, a three-shot, if you will. I was struck by the title first, for once, and the story was born after that. The next two chapters should be added soon. You can expect this entire piece to be finished before TDIO.

I would appreciate any and all feedback. I welcome constructive criticism, and while you probably won't change my mind about what I'm doing with this story, feel free to leave your opinions and predictions in reviews. Enjoy!

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It had been another long day. He had diagnosed a woman with breast cancer, he had seen five people for consults, and he had comforted two grieving families. He had worked four hours in the clinic and he had been forced to scarf down his lunch while carrying on a phone conversation with an oncologist from Florida asking for his professional opinion. He was looking forward to nothing but some peaceful relaxation on his couch, perhaps with a cup of decaf tea and the droning sounds of the news in the background as he rested.

It was nearing 11:30. The news was just ending with another useless story and he was feeling properly tired now and ready to call it a night. He turned off the TV with a lazy push of the remote button and was just rising from his comfortable seat on the couch when the phone rang.

He sighed. The only calls he received at this hour were either prank calls, or calls from House, or a prank call from House. Nothing House ever said to him at this hour was so dire it could not have waited for another twelve hours. And he so wanted to sleep…

The ring sounded again. Wilson sighed heavily. He didn't want to deal with House now that he was so calm and rested, but at the same time, he had learned long ago that this strange friendship came with obligations, and one of those obligations was to answer the phone at all hours. After the third ring, he finally decided to answer.

"Hello?" Silence. Wilson cleared his throat and tried again. "Hello?"

There was still nothing. Sighing in frustration, he was about to remove the receiver from his ear when a voice stopped him.

"Help…me…"

He almost dropped the phone in surprise. "Hel – Hello? Who is this?"

Heavy, labored breathing. "Cam…ron…"

He froze and suddenly all the air seemed to have vanished from the room. He clutched the phone to his ear, clinging to every word. "Cameron, what happened? Where are you?"

"Come…quick…I…bed…"

He didn't know what she was saying, but that was what scared him more than anything. She was murmuring into the phone on the other end of the line, babbling incoherent sentences that he could only catch certain words of. Fear gripped him; what had happened to her?

"Cam – Cameron?" he stuttered. "Cameron, listen to me. I'm coming, okay? Tell me where you are."

Silence.

Wilson pressed the phone even harder to his ear and held his breath, desperate not to make a sound, lest he miss hers.

"Cameron?" he tried again. "Cameron, talk to me. Tell me where you are. I can't come and help you unless you tell me where you are."

First there was silence. And then –

"A…ment…"

"Apartment?" Wilson repeated. "You're at your apartment?" He waited for a response, but she didn't give one. His heart was beating so fast he could hear it in his ears. "Okay – okay, Cameron. I'm coming, all right? I'm going to leave right now." He was trying to speak in calm, reassuring tones, but he wasn't sure how well he was doing. His own panic was increasing with every passing moment of her silence.

"I'll be right there," he promised her.

"…hurry…"

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He arrived at her apartment fifteen minutes later. He was aware that he had broken at least three traffic laws in his pursuit to her apartment building, but at the late hour, there were few cops out to stop him, and he hadn't been caught by anyone. He parked outside the building complex, turned off the engine, grabbed his keys, and ran inside.

As soon as he reached her floor, he could see that something was wrong. Her apartment door was ajar and there was something red that looked horribly like blood on the white paint. Darting forward, he ran his fingers over the smooth wood. It was blood. Fear gripped him; what had happened?

"Cameron?" he called uncertainly as he pushed open the door. Nothing. "Cameron, are you here?" There was still no answer. He stepped further inside, his eyes darting around the room. His fear increased with every passing moment. Why wasn't she answering him?

His breath caught in his throat when he saw her. She was lying in the kitchen, a large pool of red blood around her. The phone receiver was next to her right hand and was also covered in blood. So many emotions welled inside of him all at once: anger, fear, grief, horror. He sank to his knees beside her.

"Oh god…" he murmured. He could see now where the blood was coming from: a large stab wound on her left side. The blood stained weapon lay next to her still body. He quickly pulled off his jacket and pressed it to her bleeding wound. With a shaking right hand, he extracted his cell phone from his pocket and dialed 911. He relayed the necessary information to the operator and then snapped the phone shut. He shut his eyes and tried to think about what to do next. He knew he should check her pulse, but he was just so afraid of what he would find…or not find…

It made him sick just to look at her. The red blood was drying in her hair, turning her brown locks into a congealed mess. Her left hand was covered in blood as well; he could see she had tried to stop the bleeding before she had lost consciousness. He felt his breath coming in short, raspy gasps. It was unreal to look at her this way, to see her pale skin covered in red, sticky red blood. Anger well up inside of him for whoever had done this to her.

Swallowing hard, he steeled himself and pressed two shaking fingers to her neck. After a moment or so of brief panic, he let out a huge breath. Her pulse was threaded and weak, but it was there. She was still alive. Invigorated by this information, he held his ear to her mouth. She was breathing, but just barely. Relieved, he bowed his head and let out another deep breath.

"…ugh…"

He jerked his head up at the noise. She was stirring ever so slightly. Immediately, he reached out his left hand, careful to keep the pressure on her wound with his right, and touched her cheek reassuringly. "Come on, Cameron," he muttered. "Wake up for me, come on now…"

She groaned again and Wilson felt his heart leap. She opened her eyes just barely and he lowered his face to her so that she could see that he was there. He felt her smile beneath his left hand.

"You came…" she murmured.

He nodded thickly. "Of course," he said quickly, trying to keep his voice from shaking. "I've – I've called an ambulance. They're on their way. Just hold on a little bit longer, Cameron. It's almost here…"

She was shaking her head. "…hurts so…much…"

"I know," he told her, and he was alarmed by how weak her voice was becoming. He felt her lace her fingers with the hand he was pressing against her side. He nodded in approval and moved his left hand from her cheek and placed it on top of hers. "That's right, Cameron. Just stay with me…"

"Ho…much…ger?" she slurred.

"Just a few more minutes," he promised her, though he actually had no idea. He hoped he was right. She was fading away from him quickly, her grip on his right hand already becoming slack beneath his left. He tapped her hand rapidly. "Hey…Hey, stay with me Cameron!" he insisted. "Don't give up now!"

"…so…tired…" she rasped.

"No – no!" he called out as he saw her close her eyes. "Cameron, stay with me, come on!" She didn't respond. He tapped her hand harder. "Allison!" he tried. "Allison, wake up! Come on, you can't do this now…come on, don't do this…"

"…so…so…sorry…"

"No, don't be sorry, just stay with me," he said loudly. He was trying to keep her with him, keep her talking, but she had no more fight left in her. He pressed down harder with his right hand over her stab wound and shook her shoulder with his left. "Come on, wake up! Wake up!" he cried. He pressed his fingers to her neck again. He could barely sigh in relief; her pulse was still there, but it was so faint, he could hardly feel it. He moved his ear to her mouth. Nothing. Her swallowed hard and listened closer. Still nothing.

"Damn it, Allison, stay with me!" he muttered as he tilted her head back and began breathing into her mouth. He felt panic gripping him as her blood slipped between the fingers of his right hand. He couldn't keep breathing for her and put enough pressure on her wound at the same time…Where the hell was the damn EMS?

And suddenly, there they were. They burst through the door and ran into the kitchen. They pushed him roughly aside and slipped the oxygen mask onto her face. They shouted orders to each other, but he hardly heard any of it. All he could feel was blind panic, and all he could see was red. Red blood on her floor. Red blood on her body. Red blood dried into her hair. Red blood covering his hands. Red, red, everywhere, red.


	2. Blue Sheet

**Disclaimer: **I do not own anything related to House, M.D.

**A/N:** Thanks for the great response for last chapter. Here is the second chapter for your enjoyment. For those keeping track at home, I am now halfway done with **Ten Days in October**. As always, please review. I'd love to know what you think.

**P.S. **There is only one chapter left after this!

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"_Female, late twenties, deep stab wound to left side, unconscious, she's been intubated…"_

The loud shouts of doctors and nurses as they wheeled her into the E.R….the horrible sound of them lifting her from the gurney and plunking her down onto the table in the E.R. so that they could work…the loud shrieking of the machines around her…

"_Pressure's down, she's losing too much blood…"_

He fell back against the wall of the E.R., unnoticed by the doctors and nurses scrambling around. He was allowed to be in the room because he was a doctor, but he was too shaky and sick to be much of a doctor for her now. He looked down at his blood-stained hands and shirt. His blue shirt was covered in her dark red blood. He felt fear churning in his stomach as they continued to work on her.

"_Damn it – I need paddles…"_

The shrieking grew louder and he screwed up his eyes to block out the horrible sound. The noise ripped through his very being, feeding on the fear inside of him and making it ten times worse. He could not stand to think of losing her now, not after she had tried so hard…not after she had fought so hard…

He remembered feeling her very life beneath his fingers as he pressed his hands to her open stab wound. Through that time, he had never allowed himself to think about what would happen after he got her out of the apartment…it had seemed that if she could just make it out of the apartment, everything would be okay. The doctors and nurses and the E.R. would be able to save her, so long as he hadn't done any real damage…and he hadn't…so they should be able to. He had never once considered that she could die while she was at the E.R., and though it seemed childish to overlook this simple fact, he couldn't help but cling to the superficial hope that doctors could save anyone. It seemed different, somehow, her dying on her kitchen floor or her dying in the E.R. If she died on her kitchen floor, then her attacker had killed her. If she died in the E.R….then the doctors just hadn't been able to save her.

"_No change…"_

"_Charge to 350…"_

More orders, more shouting, more chaos, more fear. He could feel tears pulling at his eyes as he watched them work, but he wasn't sure if he could let them fall. Not yet…not yet…she wasn't dead yet. There was still time, they could still save her. He thought about all the people that should have been there right now…like House, and Cuddy, and Foreman and Chase. It seemed wrong, in a way, that he, the oncologist, the one with the weakest connection to her, was the one watching her die while the other four doctors who were much closer to her than he were at home, asleep, untroubled by her current situation. His stomach dropped at the thought of them waking up to the phone call the next morning that told him she was -

_But no!_ She wasn't going to die – she just couldn't die. She was here, in the E.R., and she had no less then five doctors and nurses running around her, keeping her alive. There was no way that she was going to die. She could not – she would not – give up. He knew she wouldn't give up; he had to believe that she would keep fighting. He willed her to keep going in his mind…_Come on, Cameron_…_come on…_

"_Anything…?"_

"_Still nothing..."_

"_Charge to 360, let's go again…"_

Maybe he should call someone…but something was stopping him. To call someone, to tell someone else what had happened, or what was happening, was to give up on Cameron before she had given up. Families were only called when the worst had passed, and God forbid the worst pass now. He wasn't going to call House or Cuddy or anyone else, for that matter, until he was absolutely sure that Cameron was okay. Then he would tell them only good news.

_She's not going to die, she's not going to die…_Somehow, Wilson thought that if he said the words enough, if he thought them hard enough and willed them to be true long enough, they would become true. He imagined that he could talk to Cameron now, that he could connect to her somehow, transcend all boundaries of space if he could just care hard enough…_Keep going, Allison,_ he would say, and she'd reply, _I will…_

"_How long has she been down…?"_

"_We're going on twenty minutes…"_

"_We need more blood down here…"_

_Keep going, Allison,_ he would say, and she'd reply, _I will…_

He was lost inside of his mind…or was it her mind now, he wasn't sure…He didn't know how much time had passed, but he knew that it had…The machines were still shrieking, the doctors were still calling orders…blood was rushed in, but he could see that she was losing blood faster than they were giving it to her…and he knew that she needed surgery but she wasn't stable enough to be moved…

_Keep going, Allison,_ he would plead, and she'd reply, _I'm sorry…_

"_How long has it been?"_

"_Forty five minutes…"_

"_Do you think that there's anything…?"_

"_I don't know…"_

_Keep going, Allison,_ he would beg, and she'd reply…

"_Time of death, 1:02 A.M…."_

And he'd fall back against the wall, too in shock to say anything else, or to think, his mind a complete blank. And he was unable to muster up any sense of emotion, any grief or panic or anything; he was numb…he was shocked into disbelief…and even as the machine was turned off and the room finally fell silent, and even as he pleaded with her in his mind and he could no longer hear her, he just couldn't believe…because believing was making it real, and he couldn't do that, because she couldn't be dead…

And there was no sense of reality, no notion of the rest of the world, of what could be real, or what could be just a figment of his imagination, or what could be just a mind game…he had lost touch with reality, with what he was seeing, which was her dead body on the E.R. table…And then it was gone, covered in a blue sheet, and that was the last he saw of her. One plain blue sheet hiding her red blood from the rest of the world…


	3. Yellow Roses

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own House or anything related to it.

**A/N:** Thanks again for the great response for last chapter. We have now reached the end of this three-shot story. I hope you've enjoyed; please review and tell me what you think.

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Rain pounded down onto the still tombstones. The droplets smacked against the cold concrete, the tiny splashes forming pools that merged together to form larger pools, or leaked off the edges and hit the grassy ground below. The occasional flowers that adorned some of the graves were soaking wet, the heavy raindrops pulling the petals towards the ground. There were not many people in the graveyard now, not with the rain to keep them all away.

But he was there, unable to stay away. He had woken up that morning, and as though driven by some unworldly force, he had been compelled to come here today. He could not restrain himself, and the rain that fell from the sky above could not restrain him either. He made his way through the wet graveyard, and despite the chilly air, he was glad it was raining. He had wanted to be alone.

It had been two weeks. Two weeks since she had called him to her apartment, desperate for help. One week and six days since he had watched her die on the table in the E.R., one week and four days since he himself had broken down for the first time in his apartment. One week and two days since he had been contacted by the police, one week exactly since he had contacted them; they still knew nothing.

Six days since she had been lowered into the ground, six days since he had last been in this graveyard. Now it was raining, and he was back again.

He clutched the stems of several yellow roses as he moved towards her row in the cemetery. He had been unsure what he should get to bring to her, but he knew that he couldn't show up empty handed. He had to put something on her grave, even if just to make it more aesthetically pleasing to him, to the outsider. He had decided on yellow since it just seemed to fit her: bright and happy. He didn't want to remember anything else about her. He didn't want to remember her red blood all over the floor, or his blue shirt, now ruined from her blood stains. He didn't want to remember anything about that night two weeks ago. He just wanted to remember her, Cameron. He wanted to remember her as Allison Cameron, doctor. He didn't want to remember her as the police did, as Allison Cameron, murder victim.

They still didn't know who had stabbed her. He had been thoroughly disgusted by their disappointment in him that he had not managed to retrieve the name of her attacker as he had been putting pressure on her wound. Now they would never know. He found that he didn't care very much. Somehow not knowing was better than knowing. He didn't want to have a personal grudge against anyone for the rest of his life. If her murderer could live in anonymity, then he could go on living in peace.

Or, at least, he could begin to pick up the pieces.

She had changed him that night; in that one hour and a half he had spent with her before she died, she had changed him. He had never understood desperation before that night. He thought he knew what it felt like to be desperate, the adjective, but he had never known desperation, the noun. Desperate was trying to finish his paperwork before Cuddy could chew him out. Desperation was trying to stop a woman from bleeding to death beneath his fingertips.

He sighed heavily as he turned down her row. There it was, a black marble tombstone with silver engraving, in the very center of the row. He kept his eyes on the ground as he walked towards it. The rain continued to pound down on his back as he proceeded forward. When he reached her tombstone, he knelt slowly down.

The tombstone shone brightly back at him in a way that seemed almost inappropriately bright. He could see himself reflected in the rain drops that coated the smooth marble with a slippery shine. He gently set the flowers onto the headstone and stepped back.

It was a slightly awkward moment. Though he was the only one in the graveyard, he felt very self-conscious. He felt as though he should say something, but he could not think of how to begin. He wasn't sure where exactly he was supposed to direct his voice – to the marble? To the sky? To the rain drops that fell from the heavens above?

He cleared his throat and focused back on the tombstone. He supposed he could just begin. If she were listening, if she even wanted to hear him, then she would.

"I am so, so sorry."

It came out as a whisper. He knew that he didn't need to keep his voice down, for there was no fear of anyone else hearing him, but he felt as though this conversation were private, something that only she should – could – hear.

"_Why are you sorry?"_ she would ask.

"I am sorry that I couldn't save you," he continued softly, gazing sadly at her name engraved on the headstone. "It – I tried, I really tried, Allison. I guess…I guess you were already gone."

"_I know,"_ she would say.

He touched the top of the wet headstone lightly with his hand. He felt the rain drops falling on the back of his hand. "I hope you can forgive me."

He fell silent after that, unsure of what else he could say. His thoughts had become simply feelings, too indescribable to be expressed to her with words. He checked his watch; he was already two hours late for work.

"I have to go," he told her. "I'll try to come back soon." He offered her tombstone one last small smile before turning away. He began to walk down the row back to his car. He noticed that the rain had started to let up a little. He smiled slightly and looked back at her gravestone, where the yellow roses were just visible.

"Please forgive me," he murmured as he turned away.

"_I do forgive you."_

**A/N:** This is all you'll see of me until **Ten Days in October**. It's still only half written, but I'm working on it. It's also in the process of being beta'd. You will see the first chapter posted on **May 22**. In the meantime, wish me luck on my five AP tests, two SAT subject tests, orchestra audition, and Spanish final. Wow...my life is really going to suck for the next month.

Thanks for reading!


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